With a solid 25% saying they're undecided.
China Times polls are historically strongly biased toward blues (I'm reminded of an editorial they had complaining about the "god-like accuracy"(神準) of Liberty Times polls and implying they had somehow rigged the elections). But it's an interesting poll. I think it shows this is going to be a real close one.
The PFP nominated 12 people yesterday, including a few that were outside their agreement with the KMT; they promise they will continue to negotiate with the KMT about those though, and some/most of the non-KMT approved nominees will probably end up not running.
I've also updated the Legislative Districts map to include the KMT and PFP nominees (I got my hands on the full list of KMT nominees).
I'm not particularly interested in this issue as it seems to be a lot of hot air over what was probably an honest mistake, but since it's been a the lead article on UDN, here are some different takes on it:
三立造假／陳雅琳不認錯 反指阮美姝未告知非228畫面
三立造假／阮美姝：有授權簽字 三立應道歉
'Blood Stains Keelung Harbor' used to fabricate 2-28 massacre (China Post)
KMT slams SET-TV over documentary (Tapei Times)
SET TV criticized for attributing incorrect footage to 228 Incident (Taiwan News)
If you love maps and/or legislative districts, be sure to check out my new Google map on the Districts for the 7th Legislative Yuan 第七屆立法院選舉
So far it is still a work in progress, but here's what I provide:
A couple of interesting articles today. The first, an article titled The Blue and the Green out of the Weekly Standard. I'm no fan of the publication, but the article seems to be fairly well written.
Second, the contest for DPP nomination is officially over because the DPP amended rules to avoid the opinion poll and all three other candidates officially stepped down. So enough of the speculation that this isn't over already.
The Annie Huang AP article pointed out at The View from Taiwan: Hsieh Win: Media Round-Up isn't bad, but the headline and opening line is comical: what was surprising about the Hsieh win? He was clearly the favorite.
There seems to be a feeling that Hsieh will be a more acceptable figure to China, and it doesn't seem to just be just Western imaginination. Chinese scholars are dropping the same sort of hints in interviews, though I'm not sure what they're so pleased about. Frank Hsieh might believe the constitution is straight forward about One China, but there's not a chance in hell he'll end up towing the line Beijing would like to see.
And finally, there's an article that a former Chinese professor wrote on Democratic Socialism being the only way forward for China a couple of months ago for a Chinese periodical called 炎黄春秋. It was published there, but the Chinese media seems to be ignoring it even as it draws plenty of media attention in Hong Kong (and some in Taiwan).
Moving on the the legislative side of the equasion which is far more interesting (full raw details here at the DPP site):
Here are the graphics for the raw results, also from United Daily News (Liberty Times printed these in the paper, but they can't be viewed online). From left to right, they are the results for at large nominees, district nominees, and how the so called "11 bandits" fared (very poorly). In total, 46 of 73 districted nominees were chosen (though 27 still must go through the opinion poll stage). The final decisions for all legislative nominees won't be made until late June (6/20).
I'll be incorporating data on each candidate into a Google Map that will show each district, list what areas are in that district and show the candidates from each party who will run in that district. I will also add the information on how those districts would have voted (blue-green) during the last legislative election if the district had been thus-drawn.
I'm also going to link you here to some of the good analysis that can be found in Liberty Times.
不分區立委初選 深綠出頭天
(Check out all the other articles linked on the right side of the page to see more details on the legislative results.)
In related news, Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office Spokesman Chung Chung-hsiao (鍾忠孝) said investigators yesterday had summoned 10 people for questioning on suspicion they bribed voters in yesterday's DPP poll.
Investigators said that people around Shan Feng Temple (
As I wrote before, Frank Hsieh won the primary. Today there is a joint news conference by all the candidates to express their solidarity behind Hsieh. Su Chen-chang put an ad on page A5 of the Liberty Times to thank his supporters and call for solidarity.
Remember, they could have dragged this out and forced another round of opinion polls before having a final candidate, but thankfully the candidates all saw the writing on the wall and decided to cut the crap. Though the DPP still must hold the opinion poll and spend the money for it, thanks to party regulations.
The final vote count was:
Frank Hsieh 44.66% (62,849 votes)
Su Chen-chang 33.40% (46,994 votes)
Annette Lu 6.16% (8,666 votes)
Yu Shyi-kun 15.78% (22,211 votes)
The United Daily News (聯合報) also did a poll last night to see how the Ma/Hsieh matchup looks. Their polls are always wildly inaccurate since green people tend to lie or not answer their poll, but the polls are still fun to look at.
After Hsieh came out on top of the party member part of the primary, both Yu and Su pulled out of the race before the opinion poll was even taken and said they were throwing their support behind Hsieh.
I don't know if Lu's said anything. More details for you tomorrow, including some legislative results.
I don't think an American politician would be caught dead wearing this, but I also wish they'd be willing to wear such things.
And boy, am I excited.
Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) is hinting that tomorrow's vote is not only a vote on A-bian as well as her. In other words, a vote for Lu is a vote for A-bian. Not going to work.
Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) believes he can get over half of the vote. I'm not so optimistic for him, though he has consistantly been more confident of his support among the party rank and file than the public at large.
Su Chen-chang (蘇貞昌) is spending the day talking about concrete policies, saying he would like to upgrade the status of bicycles and praising the upgrade in Taipei County's status to special municiplaity while promising other areas won't suffer in funds. Good for him.
Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) is brushing off suggestions that A-bian accidently let it slip that he's a Su suporter last night. Those reports are based on the fact that during an interview last night, A-bian was listing slogans from each candidate and went a little too far when reciting Su's. Su's slogan is "If Taiwan wants to win, we should vote for Su Chen-chang." A-bian went as far as "Su" in that slogan before cutting himself off ( 「台灣如果要贏，要選蘇…」). I believe he would never intentionall back a person the day before the primary, so I think Frank's right.
Other than that, Hsieh is complaining that Su won't investigate who leaked the document related the his investigation, while the China Times reports the Ministry of Justice says they "can't investigate." I'm a little confused about the reasoning they use as explained in the article.
Other than that, the legislative primary is also being held at the same time tomorrow. I'll be sure to update you as nominees are decided on!
Update: There are still districts where both PFP and KMT candidates want to run that have not yet been resolved between the parties, and the KMT noted they may use further negotiations or opinion polls to resolve those districts. Considering what the KMT has already given up though, I don't expect these minor issues to create any major problems.
I've also examined the KMT nominees listed below and found most of them are for districts the DPP had either noone or very few people register in.
The KMT has now approved a total of 32 candidates to run for them. The remaining candidates will be announced in two more phases on 5/23 and 6/13 respectively (all Wednesday). most have been lsited before; a full list of nominees seems hard to come by.
Here's the information in the CNA article:
中常會通過的黨員投票的九個選區包括：台北市四(蔡正元)、台北市六 (李慶安)、台北縣五 (黃志雄)、台北縣八 (張慶忠)、新竹市 (呂學樟)、台中縣四 (徐中雄)、台中市一 (蔡錦隆)、彰化縣三 (鄭汝芬)、南投縣二 (林明溱)。
台中市三雖然也舉行黨員投票，並由黨籍前立委洪昭男出線，不過，仍需和親民黨籍立委黃義交協調，所以並未列入這波提名名單。
至於二十三個只有一人登記或協調產生的立委提名人，包括台北市一選區 (丁守中)、台北市五選區 (林郁方)、台北市七選區 (費鴻泰)等人。另外，也通過國民黨秘書長吳敦義代表國民黨參選南投縣第一選區。
Taipei Times -- Hsieh denies corruption allegations raised by `Next'
China Post -- Frank Hsieh denies corruption charges
Taiwan News -- Report says Hsieh received illegal donations
This could be a huge piece of news, since Hsieh is the DPP favorite for the nomination. The news was first reported in Next (a tabloid weekly). Prosecutor Luo Chien-hsun (羅建勛) has written a preliminary report which is sure that Hsieh took illegal political donation(s).
The prosecutor's office would not comment today much since the investigation isn't finished, but admitted the document reported in Next is real and that prosecutor Luo Chien-hsun's (羅建勛) thinks Hsieh is obviously guilty (the exact quotation was apparently 「應可認可、犯行明確」). The office emphasised that Luo's report was his opinion only, preliminary and not an indictment (see CNA article 謝長廷犯行明確？高雄高分檢：檢座個人心證).
Hsieh supporters are calling it a political stunt, pointing out there wasn't even a political donations law in 1991 when the illegal donations were supposedly made, so how could Hsieh be guilty? He also pointed out that Sun Ta-chien (孫大千) and others had been charged with the same crime during Hsieh's run for the Taipei mayor, and that they were cleared of charges.
My analysis is that since the details in the weekly's article seem mostly correct (though it is hard to believe they go their hands on the prosecutes related files), Hsieh could be in real trouble here (after all, there is a running investigation) and that he should proceed very carefully. The DPP does not want an indicted candidate running against Ma.
Update: the magazine was Next, not Scoop.
This afternoon, the KMT will nominate Ma as its presidential candidate. Ma has said he is working hard to get in touch with Wang Jin-pyng, who apparently ignored about 30 calls from Ma yesterday. When pressed by media, Wang said there was no hurry to decide and that the two of them should meet with Lien Chan first. Another report says Wang is in private discussions with Lien over exactly how to proceed.
Who knows what exactly is going to happen here, especially with a Ma indictment being a real possibility.
As Raj pointed out in the comments on the last post, the PFP did not support the bill (due to some prodding from James Soong) that would have prevented an indicted Ma from running. Of course, it would have been a good bill -- not because it would keep Ma out, but because why should officials indicted on corruption charges get to run for high office?
In exchange, the PFP continued to ask for 7 seats, saying they now expected the KMT to scratch their back. The KMT relented and gave up first four, and then five districts to the PFP: Taipei County-2, -4, and -7; Hualien; and, according to the Liberty Times, will not nominate in Kaohsiung County-1 either. In regards to Taichung City-3, the KMT and PFP seem to plan to allow an opinion poll to decide who will be nominated.
For their part, the PFP seems satisfied even though the concessions fall short of their original demands. It is not yet clear how many at large seats nominations will go to PFP nominees, but my guess is two-three.
